Legislative History Research

Statutory Research

Public laws affecting federal statutes have various available documents, including: published reports, abstracts of hearings, congressional debates, committee prints or studies, presidential papers, and published articles on a bill’s legislative consideration.

The era in which a particular public law was enacted dictates the availability and location of relevant documents. In addition, public laws may have a history replete with unsuccessful competitor and predecessor Senate bills and House of Representatives bills, along with their surviving reports, hearings, and debates. Because legislative proposals are often vetted through multiple congressional sessions, these related bill materials are crucial to understanding the development of the federal law enacted.

Generally, there are volumes of material available on any public law. Our experience allows us to cull through the thousands of pages, excerpting that which is relevant to your language or section of interest. We provide our analysis of the history of the public law as well as the development of the language of focus. Our report is accompanied by a declaration and all relevant documents.

To see an example of the types of legislative history documents you might receive, please visit our Sample Page.

Regulatory Research

Legislative Intent Service, Inc. will research any federal regulation, providing our analysis as well as all the relevant documents, and a declaration of the materials.

We have learned that tracing regulations through the Federal Registers is sufficiently informative and usually does not require retrieval of any specific agency files because the Federal Registers include background discussion, public comments, and even an explanation for changes to federal regulations.

Federal agency rulemaking file materials are usually unavailable, but we are happy to pursue a file if the client finds the CFRs traced and collected still are insufficient. If a rulemaking file needs to be pursued, we would charge an hourly fee depending on your time objectives – call our office to discuss the costs once you determine you need agency rulemaking file materials. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee we will be successful.

For a more expansive discussion of our approach to federal research, please read our article: “Successful Federal Legislative History Research”.

For specific questions or a quote please feel free to Contact Us.